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“L’amour de loin”; love from afar; Medieval Courtly Love; King Arthur and Queen Guinevere love – leave it to the French to create an incredibly seductive yet torturous form of love and sell a bunch of books about it, lulling all of us mere mortals into believing that it’s trendy and fulfilling.

Love from afar is like the croissant; the French pretend that they eat croissants “for breakfast” and that croissants are the key to balanced lifestyles. So then we Americans go to Costco and buy a bunch of croissants and eat ten in one sitting, and we wonder, “Why can’t I see my genitals when I stand naked and look down at my feet?” Spoiler alert: you can’t see your genitals because the French don’t eat croissants for every breakfast. And you also can’t find fulfillment in “love from afar” because you can’t see past the fact that you can’t see your genitals. This all comes down to croissant, really. Are you following?

Alright, I’m being dramatic. I’m not in love. But I do have a crush on someone who doesn’t know I exist. Actually, I believe that somewhere, deep, deep down, John Mayerdoes know I exist and is just waiting to tell me…that I exist…and that he cares about my existence… (and yes, I am holding my breath for this affirmation, so if I start to turn blue in the face, dial 911 and don’t leave my side until I’m in the hands of a capable medical professional).

I recently attended John Mayer’s Boston concert with my mom. Before the concert, I was an enormous John Mayer fan. I’ve always listened to his music. In fact, his “No Such Thing” music video was one of the first videos I ever saw, after my aunt accidentally left MTV playing on the TV and I snuck in to watch a whole ten seconds of the music video. (Music videos were banned and yet I somehow managed to watch Jerry Springer on all of my sick days? Suspicious parenting, at best.)

A week has passed since the aforementioned Mayer extravaganza, and yet, I still find myself…crushing.

Like Gluten-free cookies, these friends are sweet; but they’re wrong. This is different.

I’m no fool. I know that concerts do weird things to people.

The first concert I ever went to was the Dave Matthews Band concert. I was ten and everyone around me was high. Some dude spilled beer on my sweatshirt, and I wore it to fifth grade the next day and told my teacher to smell it. Clearly, this concert had me thinking I was a 19-year-old frat boy.

One time, I saw Train in concert, and it started raining, right as they started playing “Drops of Jupiter.” I remember thinking that I’d never forget that moment. I then proceeded to go to the dining hall and eat five pieces of pie. Five pieces. All because of the concert.

When I went to Adele’s concert, I forewent drinking so that I could “soak up every moment.” Who was this girl? Why wasn’t she drinking? She was clearly possessed.

So you see? I know that concerts can cause abnormal behavior. But something in me changed during the John Mayer concert. It wasn’t the two beers I drank, or the fact that I ate some weird Thai food before the show and thought that maybe I’d contracted a parasite…There was a cosmic shifting of my soul, and I know that it was caused by a crushing crush.

I’m not even someone who gets celebrity crushes. Ok, sure, when I was 11, I once spent an entire weekend watching Leonardo DiCaprio’s deleted scenes from Titanic. I was supposed to be studying for a “math final,” but I couldn’t rip myself away from Leo, and so I scored a 74 on the test.

But I’m an adult now and I rarely have tests anymore because grad school is more of a “project-based” type of learning environment…so I’m all good, academically.

I felt swept up by John’s musical talent, his weird, scrunched up facial expressions while playing the guitar, and his ability to play the piano and whistle at the same time. I think I’m letting this celebrity crush continue because the universe is slowly but surely signaling to me that John Mayer and I are meant to be together. Shall I break it down for you (John)? Here’s a list of the whys:

At the concert, John played the song “Why Georgia,” which is my mom’s absolute favorite song. She started screaming and kind of growling, and I briefly felt embarrassed because the gentleman in front of her looked like he might say something, like, “Ma’am, are you choking on a chicken bone?” But then, right at that moment, John started playing “Dear Marie,” which is my favorite song. It was like he was sending me a message, saying, “Don’t worry about the haters. That guy is probably jealous or vegan. You do you, boo.” That’s when I knew that he’d tailored the entire concert to fit my emotional needs. What has your soulmate done for you today?

On a recent evening, I fell into a deep, dark internet hole. I found myself on John’s Twitter account, which is how I found a tweet from him, in which he proclaimed his love for mediocre movies from the late ‘90s, to the early 2000s. He may have been being “ironic” (it’s hard to sense tone over Twitter), but I’m sure this tweet came from a place of truth. Norah Ephron rom-coms spanning the entire ‘90s decade comprise my favorite genre of film, and so I’m sure we’d have a lot to talk about. Maybe he loves Tom Hanks as much as I do? A girl can dream.

In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, John said that he’s a fan of The Bachelor, but that he can only sit through the season premiere because two hours per week is a lot of “buy-in” time for the average viewer. This is something with which I completely agree. What else could I do with two hours? Let’s see: learn how to ride a moped; research sharks; invest in multiple IKEA lamps and then see which one breaks first; train a pony to deliver me snacks on its back; domesticate a long-haired latte artist. The list continues…I think John and I are on the same page with this one. Give me just one hour of women crying and pretending to eat recreational fruit bowls, and I’ll be forever grateful.

John recently said that the drawing of the woman on one of the the front covers of his new album is “her” – his ideal woman – a combination of past, (hopefully not present), and future lovers:

Now, I’m not saying she looks like me, but I’m also not going to argue with the fact that she has long, wavy hair, and I also have long, wavy hair. She also seems to have feathers floating around her head, which either symbolizes her “free spirit” personality, or the fact that she likes chicken. Either way, I’m down.

John is known for getting himself into trouble with the press. While this hasn’t ever happened to me, I did once draw a butt crack on a computer during “computer class” (back when Microsoft Word was like, the futuristic spaceship of its time), and got in trouble with my teacher, after I announced – not very quietly – to my friend, Brandon, that I’d “drawn a butt crack on the computer.” Getting in trouble for spur-of-the-moment self-expression is shocking and upsetting. I’m still trying to get over my reputation as “butt crack girl.” I think we could relate on this level.

So these are the signs from the universe. Now, you might be wondering about the practicalities of it all. It’s sweet of you to worry. Here’s a list of possible concerns and their solutions:

Sure, John is ten-plus-six years older than I. But here’s the thing: after I got busted for drawing that butt crack, I had to mature very quickly. You can’t be a six-year-old “butt crack girl” and look and act like a six-year-old. Even now, guys come up to me in bars and ask me how old I am. This can only mean that I look too old to be in a bar. Which means I’m probably just old enough to be living in Montana with John and his dogs. Plus, it’s not like I can claim I “grew up on John’s music,” because, as I mentioned earlier, I wasn’t allowed to watch his music videos. (Also, Amal and George don’t seem to have any issues.)

“But he’s a world-famous musician! How will you ever get his attention?” It just so happens that I’m going to the Grateful Dead concert at Fenway Park in June, at which John will be playing guitar. Fenway is an intimate, outdoor venue, so when I fly the blimp over Fenway that says, “Dear John, look to your left, no, your other left, by the sausage stand,” he’ll surely see it. I’ll be waiting there for him with a sausage and a soft serve ice cream in a Red Sox souvenir hat because celebrities: they’re just like us – they eat souvenir ice creams!

If the above plan fails, I will just resort to old-fashioned techniques, like moving to Los Angeles and attending hip co-ed parties and hoping to meet him. This approach could go on for years, but there’s something sweet about 70-year-old men raising infants.

“But he’s a womanizer! He’s dated so many famous women! It would never work!” Honestly, if I had as many good-looking ex-boyfriends as John has ex-girlfriends, I’d buy myself a huge molten lava cake, put on some sweats, get a crown, and declare myself Queen of the World. Life moves quickly, and we all have baggage. I know I do. There are literally six Trader Joe’s bags next to me right now, which I’ve yet to unpack and put away. I’m not saying John and I have to be bound together for all time! Please, I’ve got so much living to do. I’m just saying that he has to fall madly in love with me and then can’t feel attracted to any other woman for the rest of time.

Any questions? I think I’ve pretty much covered everything. John is witty, wavy-haired, and creatively talented, which are really all of my requirements.

They say to “write what you know,” but I, clearly, prefer to write about those whom I don’t know, and then hope that they magically discover me.

I’ve also written more about this fantastical love story than I’ve written for any of my final projects and papers that are due in the following weeks…so I guess I lied, and this crush really is impacting me academically.

Bottom line: I need out of this fictitious romance, ASAP. I need a break. It’s been mentally exhausting, knowing that I’m meant to be with someone who’s currently making Japanese-themed music videos to accompany jazz-hybrid music about an *cough cough* ex-pop star girlfriend. He doesn’t have time for me.

So here’s my message for John: you’ve totally ruined this week for me, but I forgive you. Let’s take a break – I think we could both use one. I’ll be at Fenway in June, so let’s go on a date. I think (know) we might be (are, beyond a shadow of a doubt) soulmates. And if you take me on a date and disagree, I’ll give you my souvenir ice cream hat and we’ll call it even.

(Also, I’m moving to LA in the fall, so that’s also totally a possibility. No pressure. Just saying. I’ll be there. Waiting. Just kidding. I don’t wait. But you should. OK. Bye.)